PRODYN Winter School 1999 in Sils Maria

WINTER SCHOOL on SMOOTH ERGODIC THEORY

Sunday January 24 - Sunday January 31, 1999

Chesa Laret, Sils - Segl-Maria (Engadin, Switzerland)

European Science Foundation PRODYN Program:
Probabilistic methods in non-hyperbolic dynamics




ORGANISATION: Viviane BALADI (Geneva) and Carlangelo LIVERANI (Rome)

The winter-school was centered around four minicourses of 4-5 lectures each. There were also 3 research lectures by senior participants and a poster session for younger participants.

Minicourses :

  • Gérard BENAROUS (EPF Lausanne) Introduction to large deviations

  • Pierre COLLET (Palaiseau): Escape rates and entrance times

  • Tomasz NOWICKI (Warsaw) : Equivalence of hyperbolic structures for interval maps

  • Hans Henrik RUGH (Warwick): Dynamical Fredholm determinants for smooth hyperbolic dynamics

    Local and travel costs (rail and/or APEX flights) of the participants were covered by the ESF PRODYN programme.


    Participants

    The following doctoral students or post-docs connected to participating nations in the ESF PRODYN programme were selected among 40 applicants, several presented a poster (titles given below):

    José Ferreira ALVES from Porto
    Nalini ANANTHARAMAN from Paris: Geodesics under homological constraints
    Mathieu BAILLIF from Genève
    Jean-Baptiste BARDET from Lausanne
    Yves COUDÈNE from Paris
    Krzysztof FRA¸CZEK from Torun´
    David HARDCASTLE from Edinburgh: On almost everywhere strong convergence of multidimensional continued fraction algorithms
    Mark HOLLAND from Warwick
    Véronique MAUME from Genève: Using Birkhoff's cones and projective metrics to estimate decay of correlations
    Bruno NAZARET from Paris
    Michal RAMS from Warszawa
    Benoît SAUSSOL from Lisboa
    Olivier SESTER from Genève: Dynamics of fibered polynomials
    Dariusz SKRENTY from Torun´
    Sinisa SLIJEPCEVIC from Cambridge: Gradient dynamics of Frenkel-Kontorova models and invariant measures
    David URBACH from Genève: Classical dynamics of an electron in a periodic magnetic field
    Evgeny VERBITSKIY from Groningen: Multifractal analysis of local entropies for Gibbs and weak Gibbs measures
    Etienne VOUTAZ from Zürich
    Roland ZWEIMÜLLER from Erlangen

    Guest participants:
    Michael BENEDICKS from Stockholm: The metric basin problem and random perturbations for certain Hénon maps
    Jean-Pierre ECKMANN from Genève: Entropy of PDEs in extended systems
    François LEDRAPPIER from Paris: Ergodic properties of some linear actions



    FORMAT:

    Arrival Sunday afternoon, departure Sunday before lunch.

    MORNINGS: (except Sundays) 3 minicourse lectures (9-9:45, 10-10:45, 11-11:45).

    AFTERNOONS:
    Monday afternoon: poster session.
    Tuesday, Thursday, Friday research lecture 18:00-18:45.
    (Early afternoons: cross country/downhill skiing - mathematical discussions - informal talks.)

    Local facilities include:
  • Meeting room with an overhead projector and paper board.
  • Billiard - ping-pong - (non math) library - CD player - NO computers - NO fax.


    HOW TO GET THERE:

    CHESA LARET, CH 7514 Sils Maria, Switzerland
    Phone: (41 81) 826 52 45

    1) Train to Chur (from Zurich) or Bellinzona and Thusis (from Milano).
    2) Train from Chur or Thusis to St-Moritz. (Breathtaking scenery.)
    (As an indication, Zurich-Chur-St Moritz is about 200 km, 4 hours by train or 3 by car. Milano-St Moritz is about 200 km and about 3 hours by car, 5 1/2 hours by train (through Bellinzona).)
    3) Postal bus (or taxi) from St-Moritz to Sils. (20 minutes)
    4) The house can be reached by foot from the bus stop (15-20 minutes). (Taxis or horse carriages available.)
  • GOOD FOOTWEAR is a must since there will be snow and ice. Sils Maria is at 1800 meters altitude.
  • There might be shorter routes and there exist several interesting pricing options offered by Swiss railways. Please check them with your travel agent or the Swiss railway website.
    Indicative price: 2nd class return ticket, Zurich-Sils: 130 Swiss Fr., Geneva-Sils: 230 SFr.




    Viviane Baladi